Why I like being alone

It’s not that I don’t have a great desire for sex, for money, or for a great reputation as a thinker, lover or creative person, I have all of those, the problem is that, for me, there is a place of peace that is beyond any possibly great experience in sex or money or power or reputation - a place where I am, where the world is, just now, in a state that is just perfection in itself, as it is, now - there is nothing to achieve, nothing to do, nothing to be that could in any way improve on what is transpiring now, flowing through me and flowing through the world that is just exquisite peace, stillness in motion, not an abstract world of shapes or mathematics or religious ecstasy, but something that unites the opposites of motion and stillness, in the real physical, actual world - where dichotomies and paradoxes melt into a river flowing through my mind, leaving my mind still and my body relaxed and things just as they should be, a beating, flowing harmony of body and mind.

The down-side, is that from this place everything else seems a shadow-world, coarse in comparison, and this results in some specific behaviours and experiences for me:

1) In terms of work, in IT, or intellectual / philosophical systems - a vision of what is possible, a shape in the mind that encapsulates what can be done to achieve a system that encompass more freedom, greater transparency and greater efficiency, within the physical or monetary bounds of what is available in time and place at the moment - in places where I’ve been given some freedom, this has resulted in the label “eccentric genius”, and sort of being treated like the village idiot, while at the same time being given some freedom in technical areas, whilst being ostracised to a large extent from political processes to make sure I don’t become a threat to the power structures that support those in control, which are universally mediocre and corrupt, a function of people exploiting the system for personal gain, rather than to make improvements that could benefit the people within the system as a whole.

2) In terms of work, I have been able to bring together people who are quite eccentric / moody themselves - people with opinions, people who actually care and give a damn, who want to be seen and listened to, and give them respect for who they are and the way they are, and be given time to be heard - and within an environment of transparency of ideas, where people become aware of the political and monetary and technical forces at play - it allows some kind of collective mind process to emerge where we can often collectively decide on what seems like the best way forward, without focusing on resentments about blame in the past, so that we can all sort of feel involved in what’s going on and feel some kind of pride in who we are and what we are producing. This is a great feeling, the best possible really, nothing better - but, this has never been recognised by those in charge, because they literally have no understanding of how personal relationships can work in any other way than exploitation and manipulation, and to recognise that would be to undermine the whole structure of their personality - this might be specific to banking, but I expect you get the same in most startups or governments or charities, I don’t really experience people being any different according to age, sex, race or political orientation - there’s always someone working the system for themselves and exploiting others, at the top, at the bottom and in the middle of all organisations.

3) In personal terms - once I relaxed a bit, found myself, and dropped the insane rage to succeed in a world that is crude, malicious, exploitative, political, violent, abusive, unfaithful, devious, manipulative etc. etc. - it really doesn’t seem worth it - to succeed in business, or to try to find sexual relationships that works well, or friendships that are more than people bullshiting each other - it all seems too hard, too pointless - to the point where trying to achieve something in the world looks counter productive to what I value most in the world which is the state of being I describe above, its like I’m working against myself by struggling to climb the mountain, to the point where I might as well just sign on the dole, sit in a quiet hole somewhere, and eke out some marginal existence with the underclass and disenfranchised of society, finding beauty in the pure state of being, sitting in the sewer, looking up at the stars.

People talk about perfectionism, and offer helpful, illustrated guides about how to become more realistic and pragmatic in life, but the problem is not in being pragmatic, I’m actually very pragmatic in terms of acknowledging and working with limitations of people and systems - its that for me perfection is not a place to achieve that is separate from me, but is me at my best, and is the world, now, at its most simple, powerful and beautiful. To honour the world of competing egos is to dishonour what is most precious in myself - so, though I can see that the balance of powers, between competing, self-important, ego-driven idiots may be the most effective solution in terms of political systems, because competition helps produce change which is often for the overall better - it doesn’t work for me at a personal level - and really I’m not sure what I can do to allow the world in, a bit.